Review apple air book
In October 2016, Apple updated its laptop portfolio, delivering an overdue refresh of its13- and 15-inch MacBook Pros. Considerably slimmer and lighter than their predecessors, the new MacBooks come equipped with larger Force Touch trackpads and Apple's new, dynamic Touch Bar with Touch ID. A 13-inch model without the Touch Bar was also announced. The new models cost more than their Pro predecessors, too.
For now, the Apple laptop portfolio includes the 12-inch MacBook, the new 13- and 15-inch MacBook Pros and the older MacBook Air(reviewed below) in addition to last year's 13-and 15-inch MacBook Pro models, which remain on sale on Apple's website. The 11-inch MacBook Air is now available to only the educational market; to buy one, you'll need to be associated with a school or university or find one online somewhere.
Not sure which one is right for you? Consult CNET's full head-to-head comparison of the entire lineup of MacBooks, including the Pro and Air models, as well as Apple's new MacBook lineup: What you need to know.
Editors' note: The review of Apple's 2015 13-inch MacBook Air, originally published in May of that year, follows.For the past several years, Apple's flagship MacBook Air has dutifully added the latest generation of Intel processors, and sometimes tweaked the included ports or the type of solid state memory inside, but those changes have felt very minor. Especially so when compared to the groundbreaking new-for-2015 12-inch MacBook , which is amazingly thin and stylish, or the MacBook Pro -- redesigned in 2012 -- which has a great higher-res display and plenty of high-end configuration options.
But that doesn't mean we're writing the MacBook Air off. It remains one of the most universally useful laptops you can buy, thanks to a still-slim design, excellent keyboard and touchpad, generally fast performance and great battery life. That the Air is the least-expensive MacBook, starting at $999 (£849 or AU$1,099) for the 13-inch model, means it's within reach for many shoppers who might not want to go up to the $1,299 or more being asked for the latest ultraportables from Apple, Samsung and others. (A model with an 11.6-inch screen and otherwise very similar specs is available for even less.)
While other laptops continue to catch up to the Air, and even move past it in terms of design, the Air stubbornly holds onto its claim as having the longest-lasting mainstream laptop battery. That's because of a minor upgrade for 2015 to Intel's fifth-generation Core i-series processors, previously known by the codename Broadwell. The performance boost, as in most Broadwell systems, is slim to negligible, but the greater power efficiency of those new chips pays a significant dividend.
Along with a new CPU, you get the associated improved integrated graphics that are included with the Broadwell platform, as well as a speed bump from Thunderbolt to Thunderbolt 2 in the data/video port. The built-in flash storage, which switched to the faster PCIe interface last cycle, now also gets faster throughput, although in everyday use, you're unlikely to notice any of these incremental improvements.
The 2015 version of the MacBook Air ran for 18 hours on our video playback battery drain test, blowing past its previous versions, as well as the non-Apple competition. Even if more challenging tasks or heavy online streaming cut that number by 40 percent or so, you're still looking at no-compromise all-day battery life.
If not for the continued battery-life dominance and the relatively low starting price, it would be easy to ease the MacBook Air aside and suggest the Pro or 12-inch MacBook instead. Instead, you have three distinct products, each with strengths and weaknesses, and each best-suited for a different audience. I suspect that, for some time to come, the Air will remain the best choice for students and casual coffee shop websurfers.
